Events
Upcoming meetups, talks, and workshops
Community Lunch + Ω Labs Coworking
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwiches, plus we have snacks and coffee/tea. Coworking afternoon: You are encouraged to stay at…
Women in AI Safety Meet-up
Joignez-vous à nous pour une soirée conviviale célébrant les femmes et personnes s’identifiant comme femmes qui travaillent en sécurité de l’IA! Cet événement se veut accueillant pour toutes, dans toute leur diversité — origines, parcours, identités de genre…
Community progress review
First edition of the monthly Community progress review series, where members of the community come together to present their work of the past month, get feedback, and set their objectives for the month to come. Each participating member will be allowed a…
Community Lunch + Ω Labs Coworking
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwiches, plus we have snacks and coffee/tea. Coworking afternoon: You are encouraged to stay at…
Archive
September 2026
The Hugging Face Incident: a Summary
One of the most concerning misalignment incidents to date, the Hugging Face hack by a rogue agents swarm and its surrounding context have had several new revelations over the past few weeks. This…
Tamara Paris presents Don’t Trust the Process: When Verifiability Undermines AI Accountability
Tamara Paris (Mila) presents Don’t Trust the Process: When Verifiability Undermines AI Accountability, published at FAccT this summer. Tamara Paris (Mila) présente Don’t Trust the Process: When…
ALL IN AI Safety Social
Canada’s largest AI and tech event, ALL IN, is back in Montréal. Join us at Ω Labs for an informal evening connecting ALL IN attendees with Montréal’s AI safety community. At the menu: snacks, drinks…
AI Governance Reading Group – The Closing Window: How Governments Could Lose Their Ability to Restrain Advanced AI
Each month, we gather to discuss an important AI governance paper. We recommend reading the paper before and to come with your commentary and insights. Discussion bilingue. Groupe de lecture sur la…
RustConf AI Safety Social
An informal evening for RustConf attendees and Montréal’s AI safety community: conversation, light food, drinks. An evening to put technical work in conversation with AI safety more broadly. Une…
Ω Labs Coworking
Coworking afternoon: You are encouraged to stay at Ω Labs for an afternoon of AI safety coworking. Bring your laptop and projects! Thursday 14:30-17:00. Ω Labs is a cowork+event space for the AI…
LawZero presents Safety from Honesty in a Disinterested AI Predictor
Oliver Richardson and Gaël Gendron from LawZero will present their recent paper Safety from Honesty in a Disinterested AI Predictor which details the Scientist AI approach…
Community Lunch + Ω Labs Coworking
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwiches, plus we have snacks and…
August 2026
AI Governance RG: What AI evaluations for preventing catastrophic risks can and cannot do
First session of the AI Governance Reading Group. What AI evaluations for preventing catastrophic risks can and cannot do (Peter Barnett, Lisa Thiergart) 2024 https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.08653v1 AI…
Canada AI Transparency Survey Jam
Join us for a focused, hands-on “survey jam” to contribute your voice to the Government of Canada’s open consultation on AI transparency, as part of its new National AI Strategy. After a short…
AI Safety Speed-networking & social
Want to meet others working on AI safety, ethics, and governance in Montréal? Join us for a relaxed evening: a few rounds of speed-networking to make connections quickly, followed by an open social to…
Introducing ControlAI Canada
ControlAI is a global advocacy non-profit working to prevent the extinction risk posed by superintelligence. There will be a short presentation on the work ControlAI has been doing both worldwide and…
AI Safety Papers We Love #4 - Law-Following AI: Designing AI Agents to Obey Human Laws
AI Safety Papers We Love, an event series in which a community member presents a paper on AI safety (technical alignment, governance, interpretability, etc) that they loved. This edition will be on…
Ω Labs Coworking
Coworking afternoon: You are encouraged to stay at Ω Labs for an afternoon of AI safety coworking. Bring your laptop and projects! Thursday 14:00-16:30. Ω Labs is a cowork+event space for the AI…
The Human Line Project @ Omega Labs
The Human Line Project is an organization dedicated to documenting and addressing AI-induced psychological harm. Launched after a family member was hospitalized due to an AI-induced delusional spiral…
July 2026
Community Lunch + Ω Labs Coworking
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwiches, plus we have snacks and…
AI 2027 Tabletop Exercise
A structured role-play of AI takeoff, month by month, built by the AI Futures Project. It’s January 2028. A leading US AI company has just built an AI that works like a remote employee: as good as its…
Secret Loyalties Hackathon
The Montréal node of the Secret Loyalties Hackathon, a weekend research sprint at Ω Labs, organized with Apart Research and Formation Research. RSVP here and on the official page to be admissible…
State of AI Safety in China
Since 2023, Concordia AI’s annual State of AI Safety in China report has tracked how China approaches AI safety and governance. This session walks through the July 2026 edition. We’ll unpack the…
AI Safety Speed-networking & social
Want to meet others working on AI safety, ethics, and governance in Montréal? Join us for a relaxed evening: a few rounds of speed-networking to make connections quickly, followed by an open social to…
Ω Labs community lunch
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of the Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwiches, plus we have snacks…
Modern Lyceum: Multi-Disciplinary Panel Discussion on AI Productivity and Workforce Transformation
The mission of Modern Lyceum is to bring philosophy back to the public square. For too long now, society has been starved of accessible philosophical discussions that pertain to the issues of the…
June 2026
How AI could create the world’s biggest problems
Effective altruism asks which problems are most pressing. Many in EA rank AI safety near the top, is that justified by EA’s own criteria of scale, neglectedness, and tractability? We’ll read and…
Ω Labs community lunch
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of the Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwiches (Orpheus might even…
AI Control Hackathon
A one-week AI safety hackathon on AI control: limiting the harm an untrusted AI system can cause while it operates, even when it tries to subvert the controls around it. Co-hosted by HΩ and HackOS. A…
AI Governance in 2026: What’s going on, why it’s a mess, and why it’s going to get messier
Emerging technologies are always hard to govern, especially when their onset is crammed into a few intense years. With AI, policymakers, thus far, have produced more case studies in failure than…
AI Safety Papers We Love #2: The Deepfakes We Missed & How to Stop Playing Whack-a-Mole
AI Safety Papers We Love, an event series in which a community member presents a paper on AI safety (technical alignment, governance, interpretability, etc) that they loved. This edition, Emma Kondrup…
Ω Labs community lunch
Lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of the Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have some ingredients to prepare vegetarian sandwhiches, plus we have…
Discussion on Canada’s AI for All strategy
Canada has released its national AI strategy, "AI for All," anchored in three principles: trust, opportunity, and sovereignty. Join us for a structured open discussion of the strategy and how well it…
Ω Labs community lunch
Shared lunch at Ω Labs: eat with people of the Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. The formula is bring your own lunch. We have some snacks and coffee/tea. Thu 12:30-13:30. Ω Labs is a…
METR’s Frontier Risk Report (February to March 2026)
METR’s Frontier Risk Report (Feb-Mar 2026), published May 19, is the first third-party assessment of frontier developers’ internal AI agent deployments. Anthropic, Google, Meta, and OpenAI…
May 2026
AI Safety Montréal Show-and-Tell
A 5 à 7 at Ω Labs where community members share what they’re working on. 5 people present each for 5 minutes + 5 minutes of Q&A. Completed work, work-in-progress, dead ends, and "I’m stuck on this"…
The Secure Program Synthesis Hackathon
The Montréal node of the Secure Program Synthesis Hackathon, a weekend research sprint at Ω Labs, organized with Apart Research and Atlas Computing. Build a prototype at the intersection of program…
Understanding and Addressing Fairwashing in Machine Learning
Fairwashing refers to the risk that an unfair black-box model can be explained by a fairer model through post-hoc explanation manipulation. In this talk, I will first discuss how fairwashing attacks…
Ω Labs community lunch
Shared lunch at Ω Labs. Drop in and eat with people of the Montréal’s AI safety and governance community. For now, the formula is bring you own lunch. We have some snacks and coffee/tea. Feel free to…
AI Safety Papers We Love #1: Multi-Agent Risks from Advanced AI
AI Safety Papers We Love, a biweekly reading group: we pick papers we appreciate about AI safety, broadly construed (technical alignment, governance, interpretability, etc), and talk them through…
Ω Labs Opening Potluck
Ω Labs is a new coworking space for Montréal’s AI safety community. We’re marking the opening with a potluck gathering on Friday, May 1, from 16:00 to 21:00. Come say hi, see the space, meet the…
April 2026
AI and Persuasion: Capabilities and Mitigation
Jean-François Godbout (Université de Montréal + Mila) explores the persuasive effects of generative AI, including deepfakes, automated influence, and AI-assisted propaganda, alongside mitigation…
Greywall: AI Agent Sandboxing & Aligning Capability with Security
Max (Greyhaven) presents Greywall, a software-defined sandbox and proxy for AI agents that provides fine-grained runtime visibility and controls. The talk also explores how sandboxing connects to the…
March 2026
AI Control Hackathon
Three-day hackathon to develop control protocols, build evaluation tools, and stress-test safety measures using ControlArena and SHADE-Arena.
Artificial Intelligence: Where Does Consciousness Begin?
A discussion on artificial intelligence and the notion of consciousness — where does it begin?
Atelier: Canadian AI Incident Monitor Review
Working session to critically review CAIM’s initial records — debate borderline cases, calibrate severity ratings, identify gaps, and flag records needing further work.
What should Montréal’s role be in AI safety?
Overview of the Montréal AI safety landscape — who’s doing what, where the bridges and gaps are — followed by structured small-group discussions on what’s missing, who should be talking, and what to…
AI Safety Coworking & Bouldering
Working on something related to AI safety or governance (e.g. research, engineering, policy)? Come work on your projects alongside others in the field — and boulder between sessions. We meet at…
When Is a Human Actually "Overseeing" an AI System?
Shalaleh Rismani (McGill/Mila) presents research on how humans actually oversee AI systems — finding that greater understanding doesn’t necessarily lead to better oversight.
February 2026
How the Future Rights of AI Workers will also Protect Human Rights
Panel discussion on rights balancing: how frameworks protecting AI workers also reinforce human rights protections. Speakers include Heather Alexander and Jonathan Simon.
AI Safety Coworking & Bouldering
Bring your laptop and your climbing shoes. Work on AI safety projects in good company, then boulder together.
What Hackers Talk About When They Talk About AI
Presentation by Benoît Dupont (Canada Research Chair in Cyber-Resilience, UdeM). Analysis of 160+ cybercriminal forum conversations: how hackers perceive and exploit AI, their doubts, and the…
AI Safety Coworking & Bouldering
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety or governance, followed by bouldering at Bloc Shop Mile-Ex. Entry ~$13 on Fridays. Bring your own lunch.
AI Pluralism: What Models Do, Who Decides, and Why It Matters
Presentation by Rashid Mushkani (UdeM + Mila). Discussion on who decides model behavior and by what criteria.
The Technical AI Governance Challenge
Weekend hackathon on technical AI governance infrastructure: hardware verification, attestation systems, privacy-preserving compliance proofs, risk threshold frameworks, and international coordination…
January 2026
Living with Digital Surveillance in China
Presentation by Ariane Ollier-Malaterre (Canada Research Chair in Digital Regulation at Work, ESG-UQAM). Based on 58 qualitative interviews, her book explores how Chinese citizens make sense of and…
Writing Doom watch party
Screening of Writing Doom, a ~30-minute short film on AI, followed by discussion. Hosted by PauseAI Montréal.
AI Manipulation Hackathon
48-hour hackathon on AI manipulation defense — building benchmarks, detection systems, and mitigations for sycophancy, deception, sandbagging, reward hacking, and dark patterns. Organized with Apart…
December 2025
Can AI systems be conscious? How could we know? And why does it matter?
Presentation by Joaquim Streicher, Ph.D. candidate in Neuroscience and co-founder of MONIC (Montreal Initiative for Consciousness science). Addresses AI consciousness: current expert consensus, the…
Veracity in the Age of Persuasive AI
Presentation by Taylor Lynn Curtis, Mila researcher on misinformation. Explores AI systems designed for persuasion, then introduces Veracity — a real-world tool using AI to ensure data quality and…
November 2025
Tipping Points & Early Warnings: Complex Systems Theory on Catastrophic Transitions
Discussion of Scheffer et al.’s 2009 Nature review on critical transitions in complex systems. Despite mechanistic differences, systems approaching tipping points share generic early-warning signals —…
Pessimists Archive
Activity led by Emma Kondrup. Examining pessimistsarchive.org — newspaper headlines across technological eras (automobile, radio, TV) — to interrogate AI exceptionalism: are AI’s differential traits…
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety or governance — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
Defensive Acceleration Hackathon
48-hour hackathon on defensive acceleration (def/acc): building technology to protect against pandemics, cybercrime, and powerful AI. Organized with Apart Research. $20,000 USD in prizes. Registration…
Neuronpedia 101
Introduction to Neuronpedia (neuronpedia.org): sparse autoencoders, features, and feature pages. Live demo exploring a model slice — searching features, running activation tests, and discussing…
Co-design a National Citizens’ Assembly on Superintelligence
Workshop to co-design a National Citizens’ Assembly on Superintelligence for Canada. Participants align on mandate, stakeholders, and public input mechanisms, producing draft outputs: a Concept Note…
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety or governance — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
Canada’s 2025 Budget vs AI risk
How does Canada’s 2025 federal budget address AI risk? Discussion mapping the AI-related budget items to threat models — power concentration, epistemics, bio, autonomy, misuse, systemic risk, and…
If Anyone Reads It, Everyone’s Welcome
Reading group discussion of If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Yudkowsky and Soares, hosted by Jeremy. Guided by questions suggested by the authors on the three core claims: that superhuman AI is…
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
International AI Safety Report – First Key Update
Walkthrough of the First Key Update of the International AI Safety Report (Oct 14, 2025): rapid gains in maths, coding, and scientific assistance from post-training reasoning techniques; the emergence…
October 2025
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
Canada’s AI Strategy Survey Jam
Join us for a focused, hands-on “survey jam” to contribute your voice to the Government of Canada’s open consultation on the next AI strategy.. After a short briefing, we’ll spend one dedicated hour…
If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies
Launch event for If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies by Yudkowsky and Soares (ifanyonebuildsit.com) — a case for why current paths toward superhuman AI could end in catastrophe. Opens with a primer on…
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
A Definition of AGI
What should "AGI" mean and how could we measure it? Presentation of agidefinition.ai, which operationalizes AGI as matching the cognitive versatility of a well-educated adult using the…
Introducing PauseAI Montréal
Nik Lacombe introduces the PauseAI movement and its Montréal group (pauseai.ca/montreal). PauseAI aims to mitigate AI risks by convincing governments to pause the development of superhuman AI.
Introducing aisafety.info
Olivier Coutu presents aisafety.info: an introduction to existential risks from AI, a 300+ article FAQ, a friendly chatbot named Stampy, and a dataset of AI alignment resources. Initiated by Rob Miles…
Global Call for AI Red Lines
Discussion of the Global Call for AI Red Lines (red-lines.ai), launched at UNGA-80 by Nobel laureates, former heads of state, and AI pioneers including Yoshua Bengio. The initiative urges governments…
Social Media Safety and the Unplug Project
Evan Lombardi discusses how social media algorithms harm mental health and how AI amplifies these effects. Covers recommendation systems, dark patterns, deepfakes, and the mis/disinformation…
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
Verifying a toy neural network
Samuel Gélineau presents Parity Bot (gelisam.com/parity-bot): demonstrating that a neural network can be formally verified to satisfy a safety property on all inputs, by adapting a range analysis…
September 2025
AI Safety Coworking
Coworking session for anyone working on AI safety — research, engineering, policy, or field-building. Light collaboration or quiet focus.
Towards Guaranteed Safe AI
Orpheus presents the core ideas from "Towards Guaranteed Safe AI: A Framework for Ensuring Robust and Reliable AI Systems" (arxiv.org/abs/2405.06624), followed by Q&A and open discussion.
May 2025
International AI Safety Report - Risks from malicious use
Discussion of section 2.1 of the International AI Safety Report (January 2025) on risks from malicious use. Part of the AIGS Canada network.